Tanaka Family Residence Bikyugura Granary

The Tanaka Family Residence Bikyugura Granary

The Tanaka Family Residence Bikyugura Granary (田中家住宅備窮倉, Tanaka-ke Jūtaku Bikyūgura) is a small earthen-walled grain store built in 1823 on the Tanaka estate in Sukematsucho, Izumiotsu City, Osaka Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on December 5, 2007. Its name means, roughly, a store laid up against hardship.

It stands west of the main house on a north-south axis. The building is a single-storey dozō, 3 by 2 bays and 24 square metres in area, the smallest of the registered buildings on the estate. A separate gabled roof of pantiles sits on top, a door under a lean-to opens near the south end of the east face, and the west face has 2 small windows.

A Granary for the Village

The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes the Bikyugura as a granary built against famine and a surviving example of social welfare in an Edo-period village. It did not hold the family's own valuables; it held grain that could keep neighbours alive after a failed harvest.

As senior headmen over a group of villages, the Tanakas were likely expected to keep reserves for bad years as part of that role. The Osaka Bunkazai Navi listing points to the granary as evidence of that role. The building was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape.

A Detached Roof and Few Openings

The roof of the Tanaka Family Residence Bikyugura Granary is an okiyane, a roof built separately and set on top of the plastered body of the storehouse. The gap between the two keeps heat from building up and protects the walls if the roof is damaged, sensible for a building meant to keep grain for years.

Openings are kept to a door on the east and 2 small windows on the west. Few, small openings probably meant less damp, fewer insects and less chance of theft, so the plain exterior says a good deal about what the building was for.

Access

The granary stands inside the estate, west of the main house. The Tanaka Family Residence is a private home and is not open to the public, so the Bikyugura cannot be visited.